


if stars were to burn

by redbrickrose



Series: SPN: season 15 codas [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Episode: s15e07 Last Call, Hopeful Ending, Kinda?, M/M, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21766201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/pseuds/redbrickrose
Summary: It’s a lot of pressure, suddenly, when Dean has never really been able to say the right thing to Cas, at the right time, in the right way. Never quite been able to choke out anything that gets to the selfish, needy, human heart of it - that Cas loves him like a calling or a conviction, something worth sacrificing everything or burning down heaven for, which has always been on some level incompatible with what Dean has needed, which is for Cas tojust stay.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN: season 15 codas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606942
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	if stars were to burn

**Author's Note:**

> Until six weeks ago, I hadn't watched this show since 2011. For eight years, I was free. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Sam hovers in the kitchen and asks if he’s feeling better, suspicious and concerned in a way that makes Dean itch. Dean should be asking him that; Sam’s the one who almost died, apparently, while Dean was off...well.

Except Dean knows he looks like shit, still bruised and haggard, where Sam seems fine - eager and even hopeful, like they aren’t ramping up for a suicide mission. Again.

Dean may be back in the fight, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to call this what it is. They still can’t win this, but sure, if there’s a chance they can make a difference in the losing or take Chuck down with them, then they wouldn’t _be_ them if they didn't try.

So no, Dean does not _feel better_ , but he feels something after weeks of trying to drown it all. So there’s that.

He says, “Sure, Sammy,” into his beer and waits until Sam leaves the room.

\---

Dean stands under the spray until the water runs cold before he accepts that it’s not going to scald him clean. He lies in bed for two hours before he accepts that he’s going to see Lee every time he closes his eyes, probably for a long, long time.

He finds Cas in the library when he’s not even looking for him because that’s how this works, Cas underfoot now when all of Dean’s coping mechanisms are so fucking frayed he doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth without saying something else he’ll regret.

He’s glad Cas is here, in the bunker. The rush of relief he felt when Cas said his name in the war room had threatened to knock him to his knees. He is not particularly glad Cas is _here_ , in the library in the middle of the night, pointedly not looking up from his book to where Dean is frozen in the doorway.

“Hey,” he finally says. Cas hmms in his throat, both an acknowledgement and a dismissal. The scrape of a turned page is louder than it should be in the silence. Dean beelines for the whiskey.

He pours himself a drink, downs it, and then pours another. He considers for a moment and then pours one for Cas too, like the world’s shittiest peace offering, and slides it across the table. Cas starts and their eyes catch and hold - one beat, two, before Cas looks away. His jaw is tight, but he picks up the glass, rolling it in his hand so the whiskey catches the lamp light.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks.

“Nope.”

“Me neither.”

Dean swallows hard against the acknowledgement that sleep is something Cas apparently needs these days.

“I can heal that,” Cas says. He nods to indicate Dean’s temple, and Dean reaches up, prodding just below his hairline where it’s still tender, a low ache that’s in the early stages of building to a migraine.

“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s not a big deal.” _Not worth it_ , he means, which Cas knows because he rolls his eyes.

“My grace is fading anyway,” Cas says, "it doesn't seem to matter whether I use it or not. Might as well be _useful_ while I can.” His voice is flat, carefully neutral. Dean breathes in sharply and looks down; his eyes catch on Mary’s initials, carved into the table top.

Cas downs his drink in one swallow and eyes the glass thoughtfully when he sets it down. “Silver lining, though, I might be weak enough that drinking will actually do something.”

“Cas,” Dean starts, and then stops because he doesn’t actually fucking know where to go from there.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” That's not the right question.

“Do you care?”

Dean rubs his hand over his face. He doesn’t know why this is so hard; why it’s _always_ so hard.

“Yes,” he bites out, tossing back the rest of his own whiskey and savoring the burn. When he looks up, Cas is leaning back with his arms folded across his chest, just watching. Dean says, “I’m sorry,” and it hangs in the air between them.

Cas tilts his head in an echo of the way he used to look at Dean when he didn’t get a reference or was trying to work out why the weird humans say the things they say, but there’s something so raw in his eyes that Dean has to be the one to look away. “For what?” Cas asks, like a dare, and waits.

Dean wants to say “for everything,” but that’s both too much and a cop out at the same time, just like when Cas said the same thing to him right before the fall. The question isn’t quite a trap, but there is a right answer there, something Cas is looking for, and if Dean ever really knew what that was then he can think of quite a few things over the last decade that would have gone differently.

_I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry for what I didn’t say. I’m sorry our family is dead. I’m sorry you’ve lived for millenia and now you’re stuck here with me. I’m sorry I pushed you away; I’m sorry you got dragged back in. I’m sorry I don’t trust you or myself. I’m sorry I’m a shitshow and that I took it all out on you._

_I’m sorry we’re all cosmic pawns. I’m sorry I don’t know if anything I’ve ever felt is real._

He says, “What happened to Mom. What happened with Jack. We all saw it. I should have known. I think I did. It wasn’t your fault.”

Cas huffs a disbelieving laugh and drops his head to rub at his temple. The gesture is so simple and so human that Dean has to swallow around the lump in his throat. When Cas looks up, his expression has softened into something like resigned disappointment, which might be even worse than everything that came before. “I know,” he says. “But thank you for saying it.”

Wrong answer, then. Or insufficient one anyway, one tiny rock cleared from the rubble strewn between them.

It’s a lot of pressure, suddenly, when Dean has never really been able to say the right thing to Cas, at the right time, in the right way. Never quite been able to choke out anything that gets to the selfish, needy, human heart of it - that Cas loves him like a calling or a conviction, something worth sacrificing everything or burning down heaven for, which has always been on some level incompatible with what Dean has needed, which is for Cas to _just stay_.

Maybe wanting to be worthy of that kind of devotion has always been a lot of pressure and vaguely incomprehensible, somehow both more and less than he wanted, and way more than he deserved. So just for a moment, just long enough for Dean to torch his own life, it had made a sick and desperate kind of sense that it might all be Chuck’s game, in the end.

“I am sorry,” Dean says, and it’s the best he can do here in the dark with the pain building behind his eyes and Cas staring at him, gaze heavy with everything they haven’t said.

“I know,” Cas says again. “Me too.” Dean doesn’t know if Cas means he’s sorry for what happened with Sam while Dean was gone, or for Mom or Jack, or if he, also, is just sorry that Dean’s such a fuckup.

Cas pushes his chair back and stands, brushing by Dean out of the library; as he passes, he drags his hand up Dean’s arm to his shoulder and squeezes. Dean feels the flicker of Cas’ grace spark and settle.

“You need to rest,” Cas says. “That might make it easier.”

It probably won’t, and it's not worth Cas' strength, but Dean is guiltily grateful for it anyway, as much or more for the weight of Cas' hand on him as for the way the pain in his head clears. 

“Are you staying?” he asks, and holds his breath.

It’s still not quite the right question, but Dean’s terrified of asking the right questions. What if he still doesn’t like the answers?

“I’m here to help,” Cas says. “I’ll see this through.” He squeezes Dean’s shoulder again, and then he’s gone.


End file.
